Remembering those who died on the North Coast during the 1964 flood

Arnold “Bud” Hansen, who was killed in a helicopter crash during the December 1964 flood, is shown here in a 1957 photo. A longtime dairyman, Hansen had volunteered as a spotter on the Coast Guard helicopter that went down in the storm.
Photo courtesy of the Hansen family

James Nininger Jr., pictured in an undated U.S. Coast Guard photo, died Dec. 22, 1964, in a helicopter crash near Trinidad during flood relief efforts.
Photo courtesy of David Nininger Wells

The numbers are staggering.

The December 1964 flood – which devastated Humboldt and Del Norte counties during the height of the holiday season — caused more than $190 million in damage to the North Coast region, according to “California High Water 1964-1965,” a publication put out in 1966 by the California Department of Water Resources. Approximately 7,900 families suffered losses in the region. Some 2,400 residences, 400 small businesses and more than 1,100 farm buildings were destroyed or heavily damaged. An estimated 8,400 head of cattle were killed.

But, it’s the number 29 that remains the most devastating statistic to come out of the ’64 flood. Twenty-nine is the number of people who died during the torrential storms and ensuing floods that ravaged the North Coast 50 years ago.

“This is a monumental anniversary. People need to remember it. If you look at the valley now and look at the river, you would think it couldn’t happen … but it did,” said Jerry Hansen, 71, in a recent phone interview. Hansen has lived in the Ferndale area most of his life. His father, dairyman Arnold “Bud” Hansen, was one of the people who died locally during the 1964 disaster.

In observance of the 50th anniversary of the flood that took so much from so many, the Times-Standard takes a look back at the people who were killed trying to escape the rising waters, in the midst of helping other people to safety or just trying to live their lives in a difficult time.

These vignettes were derived from poring through back issues of the Humboldt Times, Humboldt Standard — dating from Dec. 21, 1964, through Jan. 31,1965 — and a few military publications. We were able to come up with 28 names in local papers, with the 29th victim reported as an “unidentified woman, drowned in the Eel River” in media accounts.

Orleans

John Butler, who was either 50 or 62 depending on which newspaper account one reads, lived in Orleans. He was lost in the storm-swollen Klamath River on Dec. 22 when a section of Red Cap Road collapsed under his Jeep. Butler drowned as he was trying to reach higher ground.

Willow Creek

Charles Flockhart, Louis Main (also written as Maines in local papers) and Sara Cash were presumably killed when a log jam damming up a gulch broke and swept down a hill onto a small group of homes five miles west of Willow Creek. The three – who were last seen Dec. 21 – had reportedly taken refuge in Cash’s house trailer during the storm. Cash — whose body was recovered on Jan 22, 1965 — was in her 40s. The bodies of Main, who was about 45, and Flockhart, in his mid-50s, had not yet been recovered by the end of January 1965.

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Pepperwood

Florence Porter, 70, of Pepperwood died on Dec.23 when raging waters swept through the top floor of the two-story Tower Auto Court, where she and four others – Aletha Van Noy, Leslie and Regina Brueck and the Bruecks’ son, Kelly (also written Kelley) Brueck, had taken refuge as the flood stage reached as high as 35 feet in downtown Pepperwood.

Porter’s husband, Albert Porter, 78, talked to a reporter at the Humboldt Standard about his wife’s tragic death in a December 1964 Humboldt Standard article. He said: “She would have been all right if she had stayed with me in the boat while I rescued those others. There was two men I took out in the early morning Wednesday (Dec. 23). They were staying at the auto court … But, my wife was horror-stricken. I told her to stay with me in the boat, but she just wouldn’t do it. When I finally got the two men, the water had come up too much and I couldn’t row against the current. I told the sheriff’s office at 2 o’clock in the afternoon that there was only about two or three hours to save them (his wife and the others still at the auto court). But, there was no way. The helicopter was someplace else. … The water went over the top of that two-story building. My wife and the four others drowned.”

Florence Porter had three children, nine grandchildren and four great-grandchildren. She was a collector for the Red Cross in Pepperwood and a charter member of the Pepperwood PTA. A native of Beatrice, she had lived in Pepperwood with her family since 1929. Leslie “Les” Brueck, 57, and his wife Regina, 62, were originally from Kansas and had moved to Pepperwood in 1953. They ran a tavern there called the Friendly Corner Club. Leslie Brueck had been actively involved in rescue work in Humboldt County during the 1955 flood. The couple’s 40-year-old son, Kelly, was disabled and lived with the couple.

Aletha Van Noy, who also lived in Pepperwood, was 56 years old. While the other four bodies were reportedly recovered clustered together inside the auto court, Van Noy’s body had not yet been found by the end of January 1965. It’s presumed she drowned in the Eel River.

Near Trinidad

Arnold “Bud” Hansen, Bette Kempf (written in some accounts as Betty), her 20-month-old daughter, Melanie Kempf, and Marie Bahnsen, all of the Ferndale area, were killed along with U.S. Coast Guard pilot Lt. Donald Prince, co-pilot Sub. Lt. Allen Alltree and Coast Guard Aviation Electrician 2 James Nininger Jr. when a Coast Guard helicopter crashed Dec. 22 in heavy timber several miles inland between Trinidad and Big Lagoon during flood relief efforts.

Bud Hansen, 44, was a longtime Ferndale dairyman. He boarded the craft earlier that day as a volunteer spotter to help the servicemen – all from out of the area – with rescue operations.

“He’d do anything for a neighbor,” said Bud Hansen’s son, Jerry Hansen, who was 21 when his father died. “He liked everybody. He was small, only 5-foot-5 and 180 pounds, but he was stronger than a bull.”

Bud Hansen had six kids. His wife, Beverly, was pregnant with the couple’s seventh child when her husband died. Jerry Hansen said his sister, Julia, was born in March 1965, three months after his father’s death.

“My dad was the greatest guy that ever lived. He loved life,” said Jerry Hansen, who took over his father’s dairy after he died. He lived in his parents’ home and ran the dairy until 1972.

Marie Bahnsen, 58, who had been rescued by the men on the copter shortly before the craft went down, was the wife of Fred Bahnsen of Ferndale and had one grown daughter. She was the organist at St. Mark’s Lutheran Church in Ferndale.

Bette Kempf, 35, was married to David Kempf of Ferndale. The couple had a daughter, toddler Melanie Rae, who also died in the crash. Bette Kempf was a member of Our Savior’s Lutheran Church in Ferndale.

Coast Guard helicopter pilot Lt. Donald Prince lived in San Mateo with his wife, Dottie, and two daughters. He was based at the Coast Guard Air Station San Francisco and volunteered for the Humboldt County rescue mission because, as an avid fly fisherman, he’d been to the area on several occasions and loved the region. Prince was awarded the Air Medal posthumously for the work he did rescuing stranded citizens during the flood. Sub. Lt. Allen Alltree, 23, was a Royal Canadian Navy pilot. The Canadian aviator was serving with the U.S. Coast Guard in a pilot exchange program.

James “Jimmy” Nininger Jr., of South San Francisco was a U.S. Coast Guard aviation electrician. In 2011, his son, David Nininger Wells, who was just 6 months old when his father died, established the USCG 1363 Memorial Scholarship at Humboldt State University in his father’s memory.

“The scholarship is a small gesture of remembrance, which I intend to continue as long as I am financially able to do so,” Wells wrote in a Times-Standard “My Word” in December 2011.

Dinsmore

Ruth Brawley, 60, and her son, Lee Smalley, 23, both of Santa Rosa, had left the Mad River store in the Ruth area of Trinity County at 7 a.m. Dec. 22 in a white truck, according to the Humboldt Standard. They were trying to reach Harris in Southern Humboldt via Bridgeville. Reports say they were swept away by floodwaters when they tried to drive through three to five feet of water flooding Dinsmore Bridge. Some weeks after they were reported missing, a section of their Chevrolet pickup washed up on a river bar. Their bodies were not found as of the end of January 1965. Their tombstones are at the Harris Cemetery.

McCann

Ervin “Bunny” Hadley of Eureka and three servicemen, including Marines 1st Lt. William Arbogast and crew chief Corp. Joseph Binkley (also written as Kingley, Kinkley or Brinkley in local media) and Navy Photographer’s Mate 1-C Alonzo Slaughter all died when the helicopter they were in went down on Dec. 26 in a deep section of the Eel River at McCann – 52 miles south of Eureka. The men were on photographic mission to the Southern Humboldt area.

Ervin Hadley, 50, was the owner of the Flash Electric Company in Eureka and commander of the local Civil Air Patrol. The former county supervisor had also been a noted athlete. He and his wife, Marguerite, had one daughter and two grandchildren. Hadley, who was an accomplished pilot who had flown dozens of search-and-rescue missions over the years, was a member of the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association. He was also a member of the Presbyterian Church, Henderson Center Kiwanis, Masonic Lodge and Eureka Toastmasters.

1st Lt. William Arbogast, 26, was from Santa Ana. He received a posthumous Navy and Marine Corps Medal for “heroism at the risk of life while participating in aerial flight.”

Corp. Joseph Binkley was 23 years old and resided in Torrance.

Navy Photographer’s Mate 1-C Alonzo Slaughter, 31, of Long Beach was originally from Kansas City, Kan.

Orick

Nine-year-old Yvonne Cavan of Orick was killed instantly on Jan 1, 1965, when a dump truck doing flood relief work accidentally struck her on U.S. Highway 101, just north of Orick. Yvonne’s parents, Mr. And Mrs. James Cavan, lost their trailer house and all their belongings in the flood the week prior to their child’s death.

Happy Camp

Red Cross worker Paul Gillis, 40, of Tarzana was killed Jan. 1, 1965, when he was struck by helicopter blades while loading supplies on the aircraft in Happy Camp. Gillis had arrived in the area on Dec. 30 to help with relief work. He had been feeding stranded families and rebuilding and repairing homes in Happy Camp at the time of his death. Gillis had been with the Red Cross since 1954 and took part in disaster relief on the North Coast after the 1955 flood.

Ruth

Donald Bridge, owner of the AA Ranch, and Lee (or Ele) Duncan, who was Bridge’s hired hand, died in a snowstorm when a toppling tree crushed the Jeep pickup truck they were driving on the ranch outside of Ruth.

Crescent City

Howard Carter Jr. of Crescent City died after the Caterpillar tractor he was operating while doing rescue work in the Big Flat area on Dec. 25 was buried beneath a mudslide. Carter was married with three children. He was employed as an equipment operator for Del Norte County Road Department and was a Korean War veteran. He was 32 years old.

Happy Camp

Robert Edmunds, 47, of Happy Camp was the last storm-related death reported in local newspapers. His death was blamed on “overexertion and the rigors of flood and storm condition.” A dentist by trade, Edmunds died in his sleep on Jan. 15, 1965.